Q&A about Joystick Building, Parts, and Purchasing

[mr.mortified]

It seems that everyone keeps making new threads about their problems or questions regarding joysticks. Here's one main thread to keep this section a bit more clean. I'm a modder and a customs builder. I have done many modifications and have helped many in the fighting game community regarding their equipment. I will answer, or at least try to answer any questions from the community if they are having any problems with their equipment or have any question about joysticks in general

Before you guys ask any questions I need you to read this website.

www.slagcoin.com

Slagcoin is a one stop shop for knowledge regarding your joystick, joystick parts, cases and case building. Who knows, maybe your question is already answered here. At the very least you can ask your question in a legible manner and use the proper terminology when it comes to your parts.

If you still have a problem regarding your joystick or want further information about modification, take a look at the SRK Tech Talk forum (its the best spot in all of SRK, seriously). There are a plethora of modification tutorials, product comparisons and analysis plus a bunch of other cool people building custom joysticks and modding shit.

Now ask away.

edit: thread renamed to include modification

[shtkn]

stickied and renamed to separate it from teh other "Using a Stick" thread

[huey253]

how do you connect your sanwa joystick to a pcb.

do i need a special wire?

[mr.mortified]

It depends what joystick model you have and what pcb you have. There are generally 2 models of sanwa joysticks in production. The JLW which exclusively connects via the microswitch's.187 quick disconnects or by soldering wires directly to the switches. You'd have to daisy-chain your grounds together and have your signals in separate wires leaving you with 5 wires, one for each direction and one for ground.

For the JLF there is the model which has the microswitches which have to be connected via .187 quick disconnects or solder like the JLW and the model that does not use the microswitches and instead uses a pcb with a wiring harness. The wiring harness has different colors representing each microswitch and a black wire representing ground. Depending on how you orient the joystick's pcb, each of these colors are representative of different directions as seen in the picture below (from joystickvault)



Now with regards to the PCB, if you're using a custom pcb like the PS360, the Cthulhu/ChImp, or the dual strike, these directions will be listed on the board and you'll just have to solder/screwdown terminal the wired directions each microswitch represents from there. If you're using something like a madcatz board, there is a nice wiring harness that madcatz uses that you can connect your joystick to as long as you are using the JLF with the pcb and wiring harness. If not you'll have to cut the harness and splice your wiring into that harness. The madcatz pcb states what direction and what wire it is on the pcb itself.

Hope that answers your question.

[huey253]

its a ps1 pad, and its a JLF stick.
so am i supposed to solder the 5 pin cable to the pcb somehow?
is there a place that i can buy another 5 pin cable?

[mr.mortified]

you'd have to padhack your ps1 pad.

like i said in post #1 slagcoin has your answer
http://www.slagcoin.com/joystick/pcb...l#PCB_DIAGRAMS

the pcb diagram for your pad should be in there along with where to solder your directions to/spiffyshoes hack it. If you need another 5 pin cable, you can easily get one from lizardlick or akihabarashop or solder directly onto the JLF pcb

[CakeWasBannedd]

this is more of a general material/case question, but i've seen some stick makers (particularly souji) make balltops with custom designs on them, how does he do this?

[KayEff]

HEY HUEY

WHY ARE YOU WORRYING ABOUT HOW TO SOLDER YOUR PCB WHEN I'M DOING IT FOR YOU

Although you should worry about soldering the wires to the PCB when the box is prepared (if it's already ready, then just wait until I do the other parts).

[huey253]

i have the box already.
maybe i should give it to you lol

[mr.mortified]

this is more of a general material/case question, but i've seen some stick makers (particularly souji) make balltops with custom designs on them, how does he do this?

airbrushing skills.
i dont' have them ;_;